Obama quizzes astronauts about life in space

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Astronauts aboard the International Space Station took a break from construction tasks on Tuesday to answer questions from schoolchildren and U.S. President Barack Obama about the rigors of space life.

Speaking to the crew of the space station and shuttle Discovery on the telephone from the White House along with about a dozen school children, Obama peppered astronauts with questions.

"Do you guys still drink Tang up there?" Obama asked, referring to the powdered, orange-flavored drink consumed by earlier U.S. astronauts.

For Discovery's crew, Tuesday was mostly a day of rest after they completed three spacewalks to deploy a new set of solar arrays and other construction tasks to prepare the $100 billion station for a six-person crew -- double its current size.

The station, a project of 16 nations under construction for more than 10 years, is scheduled to be finished in 2010.

The shuttle is scheduled to depart the station on Wednesday and return to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Saturday.

It was Obama's first chance to chat with an orbiting U.S. space shuttle crew since he took office in January, and he was clearly enjoying it. Obama is the fifth U.S. president to speak with orbiting space station and shuttle crews, NASA said.

Obama mentioned the space station was orbiting Earth at over 17,000 mph, "so we are glad that you are using the hands-free phone."

Station commander Mike Fincke told Obama that the space station does a lap around Earth every 90 minutes, and that inhabitants get to see 16 sunrises and sunsets every 24 hours.

About a dozen school children from Washington-area schools asked questions: What do astronauts eat? Can they play video games in space? What do you study to become an astronaut?

One student asked how many stars were in space.

"I'll be interested in hearing the answer to this one," Obama said.

"We can see that there are so many stars out there that it's very hard to count them all," Fincke said. "And we can see that our Earth is a very small planet in such a big universe."

Obama asked astronaut Sandra Magnus, who has been aboard the space station since November, if it was difficult to maintain her long hair in space.

"Were you tempted to cut your hair shorter?" Obama asked Magnus, who will return to Earth with Discovery's crew later this week. "I think it's a real fashion statement."

"Quite frankly, on me (shorter hair) wouldn't look so nice, so I kept it long," Magnus said, referring to her curly brown locks that hovered in the air in the weightlessness of space.

NASA has up to nine more missions to the space station, as well as a final servicing call to the Hubble Space Telescope, planned before it retires the shuttle fleet in 2010.

(Editing by Vicki Allen)